Progress, Not Perfection.

May 30, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, I did not sleep with my okJew on the second date. We did
however come back to my place, and have a rather heated make-out session.

It was lovely. But. I feel today no better. I realize today
that even though we didn’t sleep together, which was something I didn’t want to
do, knowing him so briefly, that I still feel a sense of sadness around it. And
in writing some about it, I realize that it’s sad because I still don’t fully
believe in my own inherent worth – that I’m more than my body.

Even when we were making out, however fun it was – and it
was, and I’m sure that if we ever do have sex, there will be no problem in that regard – but I felt not fully
present. I felt a little disconnected – and, really, I was. I was disconnected
from the emotions that can come when you are making out with someone you know,
like, and maybe even more than like. I was only acting from one part of myself,
not all of me.

And, knowing that, I notice the desire to pack “Beauty” back
up behind her glass terarrium, and say, see, you can’t be trusted. But really,
it’s not her fault. I didn’t have to come back to my place – it could have been
a short date. I didn’t have to have the extended make-out session – I could
have ended it earlier. But, I did. And this is where “progress, not perfection”
comes in. Because I really could beat myself up here, and retreat back into
isolation, and a position of “See, you really don’t know how to hold intimacy
and sexuality, so you better pack it in.”

Yes, I could do that, but I don’t think that’s the point
here. The point is that I realize that heavy teenage-like petting is a little
more than I want to do on a second date. I realize that I still want to feel
known more than that, and have more of a connection before getting so physical.
I have so much f’ing evidence of how much sex before emotional intimacy is the
cart before the horse, and so, yes, I can beat myself up for not having learned
that “well enough,” or I can be glad that I didn’t have sex when I didn’t
really want to, and be glad that I let him know it was time to go, and didn’t
interpret his erection as an obligation, as I wrote yesterday. (But, … Whoo-ee! …
anyway…) 😉

So, there’s that. Of course, I begin to go all the way to,
now I better let him know what I’m looking for before there’s a
third date, and another round of, okay thanks, bye! That I need to explain what
I’m available for, and to ask if that’s what he’s available for.

Some of this sounds valid, some of it sounds unnecessary. I tend
to be an oversharer. I don’t think I need to do that, or at least, I don’t need
to do that today. I won’t see him again, likely, for another week or so, as
he’s busy during the week, and I’m camping this weekend, so I have time to let
some of this dust settle and ask some women, and see what happens.

We did have a good date, overall. In fact, it was a great
date. But I feel overshadowed by my remorse.

Again, it comes back to choice. I can choose to see this as
a failure, and head down to self-flagellation, and I’ll never get it, and how
come you don’t get that you’re worth it – that makes you so not worth it. (A
lovely circle of reasoning, that one.) Or. Or I can choose to see this as an
opportunity, as I spoke so much of yesterday. An opportunity to notice my
growth and change, and also to be happy (or at least contented) that I do notice how I’m feeling, and how I was feeling last night. I wasn’t
feeling present, and that I wasn’t feeling present is a good thing. That I noticed it. Noticing it is the first step, I think. Then I
can work on doing something about it.

I’ve written a lot of poetry about not feeling present
during sex. Now, I know that that can extend to making out if I’m not properly
known by someone, and they’re not known by me. This person is nearly an entirely unknown
entity – of course I don’t feel
intimate.

So, I can choose to take this as information for next time –
whether that’s with this person, or someone down the line. I can choose to
allow myself a little bit of affirmation over keeping my pants on. I can choose
to acknowledge that I’ve come a long way to be so present with myself to notice
these even slightly off-kilter parts of me.

Forgive the reference… but, in the final Twilight book
(spoiler alert?), the main character, Bella, throws an invisible defensive
bubble out around herself and her family during the cumulative battle. Imagine
it almost like a Bio-Dome, to mix pop-culture metaphors. In the book, Bella can
feel as one of the opponents pokes into the various places of her bubble,
looking for a weak spot – testing the defenses, and seeing how strong it is. I
feel very similarly about this work with dating/physicality. I feel that my
bubble is being poked and prodded, and I’m getting to see where I still have
spots of weakness, or places that can be firmed up.

I am sad that I don’t yet feel that I’m worth more than my body, or that I could be wanted or
acknowledged or “seen” for more than my physical self. But, this is simply a
place of “weakness,” a place where I could use more care and strength and
affirmation, and behavior that will support the idea that I am more than that. So, I am glad for the opportunity.
I’ve been shown where there’s work to do – and if that’s not what relationships
are for, then I’ve got the wrong game.

adulthood · balance · dating · integrity · love · progress · relationships · romance · self-care

Opportunity Knocks

May 29, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

So, first, some news – Remember the “SOLD” blog when I asked
all y’all to pray for my childhood home to sell so my dad and his fiancé could
move to Florida and retire? Well, 10 days after that blog, the house sold :)!!
Thank you ALL for your prayers and kind wishes! I’m really happy for them, even
though my dad is still shocked he didn’t get the price he wanted… Oh dad, you can’t win em all.

Next on the horizon, date # 2 happens tonight (this is the first 2nd date I’ve had in almost 2 years), and lord have
mercy, I’m trying to ground myself in every way possible. Stop tripping out.
Remember that I’m worthy of love and am able to give and receive love in an
appropriate way. Stop trying to script or plan. It’s not about “him.” I mean,
it’s not about wanting this person or not. It’s so much more about how do I
show up and stand in the experience of something new, trying something new. To
stand with integrity, and self-esteem, and awareness, and that fair and
balanced view thing that keeps coming up.

I don’t need a person to validate or complete me. I need to
be able to allow myself to stand without armor. I had a pretty funky
meditation/shamanic journey this morning. Unexpected, but right on track. About
my ability to receive love, and the melting of my resistance toward it.
Overbearing or absent were the ways that I learned love could show itself.
Overwhelm or rejection. I’ve carried out that pattern with my own partners, and
with myself as well. I’ve believed, and have stated in the past, that my fear
is that my needs are too great – that my needs are like a barely held back
tidal wave, and that to let them go, even in the slightest, to let them out,
would be an invitation for drowning – particularly, drowning someone else. So,
better to keep the dam contained.

It all comes back to what is the evidence for that today? Is there evidence of that today? And again, back to,
I’ve never let myself try, or others try, so really, I don’t know. Again, I
could be more capable of a thousand things, but having stopped and shunted them
all, I’d never know.

I am grateful for this “obstacle to practice on,” as is
written in a lot of the work I do with a woman one-on-one in the city. But I
said recently to someone else, that I think I’m going to begin using the word
“opportunity” rather than “obstacle.”

For a while, when I began writing that phrase with my
friend, it tasted so bitter and awful in my mouth – obstacles, fuck obstacles, I don’t need no steenkin obstacles.
I was pissed. How many more f’ing obstacles did I need in my life, I asked her.
And she told me that it wasn’t up to me. It wasn’t really my choice. These were
being presented to me, whether I wanted them or not, and it was my choice on
how I chose to use them for practice.

She was right. What do I know about my path? I want to get
from A to Z, but the “path” needs me to stop at H, J, and O on the way to
garner skills and friends and love and esteem. So, I wrote it. Thank you,
G-d, for this obstacle to practice on.

But, be it the “law of attraction”ish believing part of me,
or simply a framing shift, I don’t want to see or write them as obstacles anymore.
They’re not. They are opportunities.

These are
opportunities for me to choose – Turn Left, toward freedom and serenity, or
Turn Right, to well-worn misery. These are all mental paths, psychological
paths really. And in my phone right now, on my cover screen, I set the display
to read, “Turn Left.” It’s a reminder to me that in every given moment (what a
phrase! “given moment,” these moments are given, even gifts, if I can see it),
at any time, I can remember that I have a choice. I have the choice to obsess about tonight or not. I
have the choice to believe in my inherent worthiness or not. These are all
choices. And my choices are reflected back to me in real time.

I’d like to choose to
not obsess, to remember that I am talented and worthy, and don’t have to sleep
with people I don’t know well, and that my house can still be off limits even
though I said I was cleaning it to make it “guest appropriate.” I was told that
I am the czar of my own experience, and further, my own body. That I
don’t owe anyone anything. Repeat. I
don’t owe anyone anything. A date is not a
promise. A date is not a sexual invitation. It is an invitation to get to know
someone better. To vet each other for each subsequent date. A friend once told
me that a first date is just an interview for a second one. And so on they go.
That’s all.

So many years of believing I was promising something I
didn’t want to deliver, or was obligated to do because he was hard. Not my problem.
Sure, don’t be a tease on purpose, but he’ll live. An erection is not an
obligation.

This is an opportunity for me to hear that and feel that in
a way that I haven’t. For me to try to see that I have assets beyond my
physical self. And for me to allow those assets to be shared and seen. Dating
can start so physically, and that part is critically important, but physical
attraction is a dime a dozen, really. (I mean it’s not exactly that easy, as
I’ve realized that too) – but sex itself is a dime a dozen. I don’t want that.
– as in hell yes, I want to get laid, like every other hot blooded person on
this planet, but I don’t want only that,
and my experience has taught me for sure that when I go to that part too quickly, I undermine myself every time, and I quash any ability for me to learn
that I am worthy for more than my looks and my pussy.

So, here’s to an opportunity to try something different. To
try to believe something different. And I am excited for tonight, and that’s
all well and good, but I’m also going to pay attention to my own music stand,
and Turn Left toward the tasks I have ahead of me right now.

Wish me luck.

community · compassion · family · generosity · laughter · life · love · relationships · San Francisco · willingness

Modern Family

May 28, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday could not have been more marvelous. Oh, San
Francisco friends ~ How I miss you!!! And how I don’t realize it until I see
you.

Having lived in SF for almost 5 years before moving here to
Oakland, I had the (I can’t even think of the proper word – I don’t think I
know it) intensely fulfilling and soul-affirming opportunity to meet and grow with a pack of women. Many of my
desperately favorites were at my friend’s Memorial Day bbq event yesterday.

The feeling of guts relaxing, smiles expanding, hearts sighing, that’s how it was. I can’t stand it.

But I could, and I did. I was there, and present, and
helped, and talked, and listened, and laughed, and sun-baked (beneath a
generous layer of SPF), and hammocked, and cherry picked, and peach picked, and
dribbled little lines of peach juice down my chin, and made children laugh, and
they made me laugh, and caught up, and shared, and understood, and was
understood. Oh, this family gathering. This is my family, part of it anyway.
And how good it was to be back with them.

So many things have changed. The children are bigger. One is
moving to Japan. One got braces. One got certified. How many things change when
we aren’t looking – or in communication.

The phone works, sure. The bridge works, sure. But how me
and this particular group of women met, and shared, and grew, it was in person.
It was by witnessing monumental and incremental growth over weeks and weeks
which became years and years.

Yes, I’m feeling a little sappy. But I can’t help it. I love
them. And, they love me. This is a section of people who know me in a way few
do, who have witnessed my own growth and change, and who like me, accept me,
are fond of me. As I do them. What a miraculous gift. What a fucking gift.

I don’t know quite the solution. Does there need to be one?
The ache that I realize was there? I felt the same way when I went to a
workshop run by the same woman who hosted this barbeque – the workshop was in
January, and I arrived and saw two women I hadn’t seen in likely a year or
more, and again, my guts sank down from somewhere behind my ribs, where they’d been benignly pinching my
lungs and inhibiting my breathing, they sunk, phoom, back down to where they belong in the
grounding, rooted, centered calm.

It was at that workshop that I realized how much I missed them
all. This won’t be another diatribe on how I don’t feel connected to the East Bay as in the
“Exile” blog. I do feel connected, more
connected, than I had, with more women than I had. I feel friendships, and
activity partners, and women to share with. But. … I’ve only been here a year
and a half, almost two. That’s not 5. That’s not in the same way.

Things change. They must, and they have to. Can I change
with them? How do I balance? How do I maintain – or if change is necessary, not
“maintain,” then, but evolve? How do I evolve with the reality of distance?

Because I won’t always be here in the Bay. That much is
likely true. And what happens then? I have a dear friend who moved to Brooklyn
last year, and we speak on the phone maybe once every two months, with some smatterings
of texts, but we’re not nearly as close – this woman who was once as close as
my heart.

How do we do this?

I’m not sure. I know that I obviously missed these women
more than I knew. I missed the way I feel
when I’m around them – known and loved, exactly as I am, for who I am. Women
who know me well enough to jibe at me, laugh with me at myself, and poke into parts of me that need to
be poked for movement to happen. These are women… for christ’s sake, I can’t
stop gushing.

What now? If I’m aiming to be responsible and adult in my
life, to take action where I’ve taken none, to believe that no one is coming to
change or live or make my life for me – then, how do I incorporate this
knowledge? The knowledge that I want more of that – that I want those
connections kindled, or renewed?

I love my new friends – they are buoying me in ways they
don’t even know. But I miss my old friends. I miss so much of what’s happening.
Life is so damn short and quick, and things move so suddenly. Someone moves to
a new town. Someone to a new country. Someone is engaged, or married, or
pregnant. Someone is in a break-up or new relationship. Someone is changing
careers, or expanding a business, or taking a new class, or forming a girl’s
band (yes, that’s me and my friend with plans to jam with her drums and my bass,
here in the east bay).

I want. Terrible words. But, I do. I want – I want what I
had, but in the present. I want what I had yesterday – the gut-release, the
warm bath, the mild pleasant smirking at the familiarity of us all.

I want. In the present. And how.

adulthood · change · dating · fear · intimacy · Jewish · love · progress · relationships · sex · sobriety

Mind your own music stand.

May 26, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Several years ago, about 5 or so, I was dating a wonderful
man. I was also in therapy. These things were and were not related 😉

One day, my therapist and I stumbled across a metaphor that I’m reminded of
today – when I get into relationships, it’s as if I’ve been the conductor of my
own orchestra, and ultimately, the highest ideal and intention is that my
partner, boyfriend in this case, have his own orchestra, and that the two sounds mix
and meld in a way that increases the beauty of both, without losing the
integrity of either.

Surely, you may have your own metaphor for this, as there
are many, but that’s what came to me then.

The “problem,” as it were, is that I was noticing my
tendency to want to begin to conduct his orchestra. That if his oboe were a
little more resonant, or his triangle more tingy, we’d sound better together.
The result of this peeking over onto his side, was that I began to neglect my
own. In beginning to mind someone else’s business, I forgot to mind my own.

When this happens, things like self-care, integrity, and reason
begin to go out the window. I become more interested in making sure you’re
doing things “right,” and that we “sound good together,” that my whole balance
of living gets thrown off.

That was then. This is now. Will it be the same?

When, before I began dating that man, I asked a trusted
friend if she thought I were ready to date – as he would become the first
person I’d date while sober – she said that if I was ready to handle the
emotional twists of a relationship without drinking, then go for it.

And so I did. I learned a lot, and ultimately, it didn’t
work out, but I learned so fucking much.
I learned how to try to love, how to try to be loved. I learned how to be
honest with another person. I learned to look at the clouds and see shapes and
animals again. I learned how to relax a little.

Yes, these are things I can learn “on my own,” they are. And
I get more of that now than I did then. But, too, there are some things that
can only be learned in communion with
someone else.

I notice that that big hunk of manic-depressive wild-haired
meat that I call my inner manifestation of Love is “up” right now. As when I
met her on one of my shamanic journeys, and she threw herself on me after I
gave her one bit of kindness, she is not yet one who knows balance. When I
pushed her off of me, she got rageful and went Neanderthal.

This is part of my pattern. Show me some kindness, and
suddenly, I light up like Times Square and drape myself on you, my needs,
expectations. Show me that you can’t possibly meet those demands, and I will
turn to ice quicker than an eskimo’s piss.

There’s more to this. As there usually is. If you’re not
meeting my demands, and I’ve turned cold, you won’t really know it. It’s subtle
closing off and shutting down, this Elvis leaving the building. We’ll have sex,
but I won’t be present. I’ll still try to use it as a way, the main way, to
connect, but it doesn’t really work when I’m not there.

Also, as I recognized last night on my surprise-last-minute okJewpid date, before I know more or better or have a peg on the situation,
sure I’ll be outwardly as gregarious and charming as always, but… I felt it – I
felt my shell.

Perhaps this is “normal.” You’re meeting someone for the
first time – you of course have some guards, maybe. But, I’m just so much more
acutely aware of how scared I am. How scared I am to allow that shell to melt,
because inevitably, in my past, it has meant a descent right into that enormous sigh of relief that you are here, that I can now
relax, depend on you – and make a few adjustments to you while we’re at it.

When I let go of this shell, I start a pattern that leaves
me alone, sad, and feeling pretty childlike. Not womanly. Not adult.

So, I keep the shell. I’ve kept it for years now. Better to
avoid the whole game than to try to play it differently, acknowledging and
using the new skills for living and being that I have. I could have garnered a
whole fleet of new tools and attitudes, but fuck if I let them out of the gate.
They’re like a trained – well, I was going to write “army,” but I’d rather
leave the military out of my love life, thank you – they’re like a well-trained
dance company. Having rehearsed for years, perfected, practiced, fallen, and
learned – but … me, their manager, I will never and have never let them perform. They
are a lost art. They are a lost gift, because I’m too scared of how they’ll be
received, or of if they’re really ready for the big show.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but with the Cousin, I
said at one point (not to him) that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a
shelf, and “fix” myself, or get better, and then, only then, when I were
better, then I could take him down, and we could have a wonderful life
together. Life.Does.Not.Work.In.Darkness. It does not work in absence, and it
does not work without my active participation.

I may be the world’s best anything, but I’d never know it.

And so, it’s time to see if my conductor skills, my dance
company, my emotions have learned things that I may not know they’ve learned.

Because my date was awesome. And, likely, I may want to date
again.

adulthood · courage · fear · finances · recovery · relationships · sex · the middle way · willingness

Romance & Finance

May 19, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The Third Thing. That’s what a woman told me yesterday,
after I met up with this new group of folks who, apparently, talk about
intimacy, relationships, and habitual avoidance of (or indulgence in) such things.

I was telling her that for years, I’ve been trying to find a
balance between Betty Crocker and the Vixen, to find the middle way between
them. And she said something I’d never heard before – that likely, whatever it
or I turn out to be, it’s probably neither of these – it’s a Third Thing.

I’ve said sometimes, that I don’t like the analogy of
“living in the gray,” you know, the balance between black and white – between
black and white thinking, all or nothing. Some people call this middle, attempting
to live in the gray area. But to me, that sounds pretty awful, like living in a
fog bank (looking at you, San Francsico!). And so, I’ve said that instead of
the middle of black and white being gray, I call it color. That something other
than black, or white, is color. And so, “the third thing” thing makes sense to
me (she said it’s a Bill Clinton quote, and g-d love Bill – I’ll have to look
it up).

Romance and Finance. I hear so often that these are the
things which so often plague, worry, or motivate all of humanity. I’m reading
this book on the art and history of Europe (“for the traveler”), trying to get
some more info, things I slept through or didn’t care about or was too worried
about the aforementioned “ance”s to listen. I have a few books on European
travel on my desk, and this one is giving me the history, the why and wherefore
of how come art and architecture look like they do. And here’s what I’ve
learned: people, throughout history, have fought and been motivated by romance
and finance. Kings marriages, new religions, revolutions. Many have been about
who has what, who doesn’t have what, and how they can get more.

So, I’m not alone, apparently, in the grand scheme of these
issues. Of working on them, and my own grating relationship with each.

This is good. And there is a solution, but as Jung said, (I
think I’ve mis/quoted him here recently!), You can’t solve a problem on the
level of the problem. And the problem here is that I have only my well-worn
resources, patterns, and behavior to help me “solve” these problems of romance
and finance. So it’s time to look for help.

My romantic life as having fallen in either Betty Crocker or
Vixen territory is very much like my relationship with money. I’m either
restricting, meagerly existing, and isolating – or I’m burning money to quench
and balm the pain of all that restriction. Binge, remorse, restrict. Repeat.
Many people can notice these traits in anorexics or bulimics, and so far in my
life, knock on every piece of wood and mock-wood in the vicinity, that has not
been an issue for me in that particular way. My binge and restrict is with
emotions, money, and sexuality.

And if the middle way is not indeed the “middle,” then I
have to keep coming back to those who know a different way, and can help me to
get there.

This morning, I queried in my Morning Pages about this desert
I go to in meditation. How was that desert, I asked. I hadn’t been there in a
long time, and it was a place that I’ve gone to occasionally in my meditations
for years, and one which I was encouraged to solidify in myself and my brain
while I was doing some EMDR work with my therapist earlier this year.

She said it was interesting that I chose a desert as my
“safe place,” that many people choose cozy small place, places where they feel
protected. But, no, for me, I want a wide wide field of vision. There are no
surprises, no sneak attacks, I have full view of every single thing for miles
and miles. It’s a desert like those you see in the southwest, with ocher
colored mesas in the distance. And the flat, flat, cracked earth expanse of
dirt and dust and a hawk flying lazy circles in the bright, expertly clear
sunlight.

This, is safe to me.

I suppose I’m reminded of it today, as I am going to be
needing to touch into places like this – safe, calm, where I feel almost in
charge. There is nothing hidden, nothing freaky, nothing to shake me or scare
me or surprise me. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of surprises
and shakes and scares as I begin to dive into this romance stuff. This
emotional intimacy, undoing this very deep pattern of all or nothing. And so,
it’s time for me to strengthen my base, root within my safe places, and get the
hell out of the way.

This is like a geyser, this work. Or maybe it’s not, what do
I know. What I do know is that I am grateful for the help I have available to me,
internally and externally. I was asked in my meditation from my Feminine, as I
reported the other day, if I was ready – I guess I was being asked if I was
ready to work on this stuff – because she/I have reawakened, and is powerful as
fuck. It is no wonder to me, then, that it’s taken me as long as it has to come
to this place of beginning to integrate and work on my
sex/relationship/intimacy stuff – I’m going to need all the resources I’ve
acquired, and many I have yet to discover.

Here’s to an assault on old ideas, however that looks as it
is coupled with a cosmic cease-fire.

adulthood · change · family · honesty · intimacy · life · love · relationships · willingness

A Fair and Balanced View

May 14, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

There are a few things that are hard to reconcile. For
example, prefacing your poem to your family by saying it’s mediocre as you did
not have time to edit the first draft – and after reading it in public at the ceremony at school, having people come up to you afterward praising the poem
and asking how they can get a copy. I gave a woman my card.

It’s hard to reconcile my view of where and how I am in my
life with the clouds of pride and support that beamed from my family and
classmates on Saturday, graduation day.

It’s also hard to maintain a stoic, stark, medieval view of
myself when I have women around me who “want what I have,” and a woman to call
who reminds me of the length and breadth of this process of school, and indeed the last 6
years.

A fair and balanced view. How to achieve that around
ourselves, whom we hold to such impossible standards that we’re always falling
short. Or at least I do.

Because I’m not
falling short. My measuring stick is broken and outdated and subjective.

Not much has “changed” outwardly over the last few weeks as
graduation occurred, and it’s hard to know if much has changed inwardly, but, I
think it is, slowly. I think my awareness of my rigid and flagellating stance
with myself will begin to bring change with it.

I also decided to change my workshop to sliding scale,
instead of a set fee. I had the thoughts to either cancel the whole thing (as I
had/have only one registered/paid participant), or to host at my house the few
who said they wanted to come, or do it in the city anyway.

I chose the latter, partly because I want the experience of doing it in a more “formal”
or official setting. I still want to share these tools, and help others
to learn whatever they need to learn from this. And also… I’m worried if I just
cancelled it, people might show up at the event the day-of, and be disappointed 😉

So, we’ll see what happens with that. It still may just be
me and my one registered participant. And if that’s the case, and I eat the
rental fee, so be it. Not ideal, but my ideas about how the workshop should be
are obviously not working, so instead of edging toward “fuck it” and not do it,
or toward “you MUST” and do it for the set fee, I’m finding a middle way. – That feels
like progress.

Also, I got to talk with my mom yesterday at the ass-crack
of dawn when we’d dropped my brother at his flight at SFO, and had a few hours
to kill before her flight. So, we grabbed some coffee and sat in Terminal 2 in
those Ikea-looking tangerine-colored winged chairs, and we talked.

I decided somewhere mid-conversation to tell her why I’d
stopped talking to her on the phone for almost a year. I didn’t “owe” her the
explanation, but I did want to share why. I reminded her of that last
conversation we had, and how she “hi-jacked” the conversation (a term she used
about her behavior when I’d finished). How suddenly a light and fun and mutual
conversation jumped the tracks, the shark, the point, and careened head-long
into “My Mom’s Issues.” I told her that I don’t feel able to hold the space for
that stuff for her anymore, that it feels inappropriate, but that I didn’t have
the words or wherewithal to tell her that in the moment. And so, instead of putting up a boundary, I put up a wall.

And it’s held. She said she had to just accept that we’d communicate
via email and text, and that that had to be enough. And for this year it was.
Seeing her, however, I really was reminded of how much I miss her. And she said
to me after I’d shared what went on with me, that if I felt able, and it sounds
like I feel more able now, to tell her that she’s hijacked the conversation to
let her know. And we’ll see if I can.

We both know we’re still in new territory. Our relationship
has swung the gamut from oversharing, overly enmeshed, over identification all
the way over to not talking for months and months, several times. We’re still
finding our center in our relationship, as I suppose we’re each finding our
center within ourselves. Back to the fair and balanced view. The Middle Way.

How can I hold the contradictions? How can I allow for
myself to be vulnerable without a hard shield of protection? How can I see
myself as a simple, or simply complex, human, with assets and liabilities? And, how can I allow others that same
generosity?

Dunno. 😉 But I think I’m trying.

adulthood · change · commitment · community · faith · family · growth · home · life · recovery · relationships · romance · spirituality · tradition

The Kotzker Rebbi

May 3, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

According to legend, and history, Menachem Mendel
Morgenstern of Kotzk, Poland was an eccentric and influential rabbi, teaching
and forming one of the early branches of Hasidism, creating a more austere sect
of Judaism.

According to legend, and history, The Kotzker Rebbi, as he
was known, locked himself in his room for the last 20 years of his life. He
never left it. He received his food through a hole in the wall, and apparently
opened the door of his home once a year, revealing himself and his new
teachings/learnings to his disciples.

According to genetics, I am his great great great
granddaughter. His grandson is my grandfather’s father… I think. I have a family
tree at home somewhere. Either he’s my grandfather’s grandfather, or my grandfather’s
great grandfather. I haven’t done the math.

Point being, and why it occurs to me today, I have no idea –
but the point being that I have some whacked out crazy, and powerful, Jews in
my lineage, living in my blood and DNA.

I’ve always found this fascinating. Firstly, it sort of
points to the understandability that mental illness runs in my family(!), and
secondly, it just sort of makes sense that Judaism continues to be this thread
in my life. I can’t sever it, ignore it, dismiss it – it is me.

When I began teaching at the Sunday School last year in
Berkeley, I said that I felt it was both my duty and my privilege to do so.
There is a line from some text that if any of us knows even one word of Hebrew he is
bound to teach it to someone else.

Again, I don’t really know why this occurs to me today. I
suppose as I begin to think about the direction my life is taking, or may take,
or I want it to take, I begin to think about this thread. Part of my
consideration in where I will move next, if I move, and eventually I
will (whenever “eventually” is), is if there are Jews there. For example, I’ve
been enamored of Asheville, North Carolina, ever since I heard of it through a
friend of mine who lives there. Young, hip, mountainous, liberal, artsy,
cultured … with one Jewish temple, of Conservative affiliation – aka, more
religious than I am, or want to be.

I don’t want to be more religious, I simply want to have
more connection to the community. More connection to those who share a history,
random Yiddish words, and a very eye-rolly understanding of the complexities of
a Jewish family.

So, Asheville may not be it. I have this crude crayon
drawing I made after a group meditation about 6 or more months ago. It’s a
couple, a man and a woman, holding hands, walking up a street to a
t-intersection. At the head of this intersection is a house – with a
wrap-around porch, huge trees, and a stream in the back, nested by a forest
behind it. To the right of this couple on the main street is a building with a
symbol for recovery on its façade. To the left of them, is a building with a
Jewish star above the door.

This is my vision. This, I believe, is how I become the
woman I want to be. Buoyed by my communities of faith, I’m able to stand in
partnership with another human being, and take part in what the world has to
offer.

I am grateful to have the quirky lineage that I have. It
makes sense to me, and makes me smile. (On my other side, my dad’s side, I’m
descended from Bohemians, literally.) Somehow I feel that I’m preparing to take
up a mantle that belongs to me, which includes all of these histories and as
well as all of the modern and current advantages I’ve inherited as a 20^th
century woman with good health and education. And I’ll be curious when I find
that crayon drawing in 20 or 30 years to see how close I’ve come.

abundance · action · anger · change · faith · freedom · frustration · growth · progress · relationships · romance · self-care · spirituality · work

The Masculine Mystique

April 22, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Firstly, I would like to quote an acquaintance of mine as
they responded once to my tirade on SF’s chilly weather – “Then Move.” Touche,
quite right. And I will, just not today.

Secondly, my morning pages were like something out of a
schizo’s notebook this morning, and I’m rather heartened than alarmed by it.

As I began to, again, write that I could paint, a sentence which was followed immediately in my head by the thought, “Yeah, right,” … my morning pages turned
on me, and began a near-two page rejoinder along the lines of Stop Fucking
Saying Yeah Right, and GO DO IT! I channeled the very pissed off and frustrated
voice/part inside me that is exceedingly
tired of the self-defeating, Eeyore-like part of me that crosses all my
interests with a “Yeah, but,” or a “How will I make any money?”

I was happy to see that this activated part was so adamant,
and demanded that I Just Fucking Do It, rather than what I’ve been doing for a
very long time, question, debate, lolly-gag, despair. This voice is the fuck despair
voice. It is the voice, one might say, of my inner masculine.

I’m a little hesitant to draw the dividing line between
feminine and masculine in this way; feminine as pondering and questioning;
masculine as action and fortitude. But, it sort of feels like that to me, and
it’s only my interpretation. There are
plenty of other ways to categorize, or not, these disparate voices and parts of
ourselves. But, for the sake of the argument, I’ll call it my masculine side.

And the truth is, it’s right. Whatever it is, or I call it.
Because this is the point in the job search where I get frustrated and think,
well, nothing will come of it anyway, so phooey, here’s another admin job. My
internal beings of all sorts are having a coup. Nuh, Uh. Time’s up. Off the
pity pot, lady. Get on it.

And further more, Yes, You Can. Furthermore,

to segue,

you/I have very recent experience in NOT behaving as you
would have in the past. You very
recently responded to a situation MUCH differently than factual evidence
had it before. This means … you’re different. You’ve changed. You can do things
now that you couldn’t before, and your mental register aligns with a much
healthier set of behavior and thinking now.

The case in point, is that I was asked to go to the theater
by a boy…man. There is nothing wrong with this person, except that a) I
accepted the extra ticket thinking he has a girlfriend, so I thought it was a friend thing (I found out later he does not), and b) he is new to
the not-drinking world.

Over the last 3 days, I have felt icky – like the princess
and the pea. I know from my own experience that the first few months of not
drinking and trying a whole new way of life – no, not first few months, first
few years (or year, AT LEAST), are so incredibly
formative, that I would be damned to throw a wrench into the wheel works of
someone else’s critical development. I know people who have gotten involved, and it’s
worked out marvelously, but I, surprisingly, was feeling way too uncomfortable
about it.

Sobriety, mine or someone else’s, was way more important to
me than a fucking non-date date. No matter how long it’s been, how intriguing
it is, how fun it could be. Not doing it.

So, through a series of phone calls to friends, and a
confirmation that it’s the respectful thing for us both, yesterday, I texted
the dude and said I’d rather stick to seeing him “around,” than go for coffee.
That I felt “murky” around it.

You know what he said?

“Okay. No worries!”

???!!!

All my f’ing belly aching, and heming and hawing, and “Okay,
No Worries”?? Wow, this honesty thing really f’ing works.

Through a series of circumstances, the timing was different
than he thought, so I get to go see the play by myself and also get to have a
clean, peer-like relationship with this dude. I don’t have to feel weird, or
avoid, or future-trip about it. The play is the bonus prize – the actual prize
is the relief of doing the right and honest thing for myself, and sticking to a
new way of being.

I know from direct experience that I haven’t always
responded that way to someone who was new to not drinking, and I experienced
the fallout of that, however brief it was. I, apparently, have learned from my
experience. And my internal alarm system is calibrated to this new way of
being.

I say all this to say, that my masculine side has a point.
All that writing this morning about Just Do It has a point. The point is that I’m not the person I used to be. I don’t have the same
reactions I used to, and so I don’t have to follow the same actions I used to.
This whole “new way of living” has made itself quite apparent in my life, and I
can allow the boon of that to propel me forward.

I don’t have to be afraid anymore. Afraid there isn’t
enough, or I’m not good enough, or I’ll never make it anyway, or that a
creative life is a stupid one.

In fact, I don’t have these fears anymore, really. They’re
just echoes. There’s nothing real to scare me. There’s no one stopping me, or
chiding me, or making fun of me.

And if there ever is, I apparently have a massive bully to
yell affirmations at them.

direction · maturity · recovery · relationships · spirituality

The Life of an Asparagus

January 9, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

There is a story I’ve heard about bamboo once, and about
asparagus once, and because they were intended as metaphors, I’ve never
bothered to look up their validity, as that wasn’t the point. It goes something
like this:

Asparagus (and bamboo) germinate under the soil for years, months.
For quite some time, on the surface of the earth, it looks as if nothing at all
is happening. The land looks quiet, unproductive, fallow. Then, as if by
miracle, overnight, the asparagus sprouts up through the ground all at once in
a burst of growth and joy. (“joy” added by literary license) 😉

The metaphor’s intended lesson is that, sometimes, when it
looks on the surface that nothing at all is happening, when you begin to lament
that nothing is growing, will grow, that the land itself is bunk, suddenly,
sometimes overnight, suddenly there is the evidence of new life. The point is
that “nothing” has not been happening; there have been great somethings
happening, we just haven’t been able to see them in the way we’ve been looking.
But in fact, a great amount of life, growth, germination, determination, and
nature have been happening all along.

This story occurred to me this morning, having come home
from my annual New Year’s women’s meditation/spirituality retreat yesterday.

What I felt is that this is going to be the year perhaps
right before the sudden overnight growth, or the year I begin to see progress.
In all likelihood, it’s not going to look like “by the end of this year, my
name will be in a playbill,” but it will look like something. The beginnings.

Forgive me if this sounds vague or oblique, but it’s sort of
hard to concretize what’s beginning to feel like satisfaction. The last several
years, according to the above metaphor, have been a lot of laying of groundwork. There’s been a lot that has
been happening under the surface. And sure, it’s looked like a ton of busy-ness
above ground – moving, jobs, school, relationships – but, in reality, there
hasn’t been as much movement or change above ground as you might think. (Being busy and changing are two different things, I realize.) A lot
of it has been happening internally, subtly, and slowly.

I’m also just coming back from this intense, sort of
un-summarizable weekend, so honestly, I’m still getting my head around what new
knowledge, support, direction, I’ve gotten. And, truly, I imagine that a lot of
what’s happened this weekend will take months to settle. And that’s cool. And
that’s what I like about them.

The retreats become this sort of psychic wisk, stirring up
all kinds of stuff, and it takes some time for the pieces to settle enough to
examine and integrate them.

What I can say for semi-certain is that I am feeling more
confident than ever about who and where I am and am going in my life. I had a
sort of montage-y thing happen in one of my meditations where I was
fast-forwarded through all the work I’d done since I’d sat in that very circle of redwoods around that very fire 4 years ago. It’s a lot. I’ve done a lot of work. I’ve excavated a lot, I’ve healed a lot,
I’ve been presented with some of the most frightening aspects of my past and my
fears and my blocks. And I was brought up present to what I have to do next.

It’s not surprising, and in fact, I’ve been preparing to head here, but it was like pieces falling into place. In order to move forward, in order to begin doing the work I want to do, this is what needs to happen next. It’s a very “If X, Then Y” scenario. I must address a very particular series of old and rather severe
wounds in order to really come out from the
side-lines of my own life — I have to address this long avoided and discounted pain. In order to “own
voice,” have voice, allow my voice to be heard, via song, performance,
presence, I have to unblock this constriction. A constriction which is and has been very
clear on saying, demanding, and indicating that I “shut the fuck up.”

Brightly, what was also indicated to me, and what I felt/feel
very strongly, is that I have allies. That I have the community to draw from
which I will need to get into, through, and out of this painful mutedness. And,
too, that any teacher or mentor I don’t yet have will become available as
I need it – and as I ask for and accept help. That’s been a theme for me lately
– about not being as isolated and fiercely independent as I’ve been. That I
don’t have to do this alone. I’ve begun walking into part of that process, and
it’s a lifetime thing.

So, asparagus. This will be a year of rubbing my hands over
the soil, brushing some of it back, and revealing the incredible tip of the
asparagus bounty that is about to happen.

I am grateful for the women who have helped me to come to
this place – and I’ll be reaching out to you for your wisdom, experience, and support as I move forward from here (if I don’t, text me) 😉

courage · dating · fortitude · Jewish · relationships · self-care

Saturn Returns.

January 6, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Every twenty-eight years, the planet Saturn returns in its
orbit around the sun to place it had been when we were born. Every 28 to
approximately 30 years, there is a window of time which some people call
“Saturn Returns.” According to some, this period of time is ripe with change
and opportunity. Usually there are major life changes in this period, either
positive or negative, and according to legend, the lessons that we do not learn
during this first period of Saturn Returns around our 30^th birthday,
we have the opportunity to learn again as we approach 60; and if we’re lucky
enough to be healthy for it, again around our mid to late 80s.

In what is proving to be one of the most uncomfortable
changes I’m making in this, my period of Saturn Returns, I cancelled my date
with the Catholic for tonight, and am finally, after many f’ing years of
debate, accepting that a Jewish partner is not only important to me, but
necessary.

What makes this choice hard? Or this admittance? Well, it
feels like I’m closing a very large shiny door behind which are many large
shiny non-Jews. I also have debated whether this is “self-will,” me attempting
to shoe-horn myself into a belief that isn’t true or fair, one that says I’ll only date
Jews. How closed off is that?

But, the truth, the very hard truth of it is, that it’s the
only thing for me to do. I have been down the relationship path with men who
are not Jewish (in fact, no serious relationship I’ve ever had has been with
someone Jewish). What inevitably happens is that I spend a very large amount of
time while in the relationship debating whether it is a “deal-breaker,” until my brain feels like an out
of shape yoga participant. Achy, cranky, tired.

Ironically enough, on my date with this Catholic gentleman
on Monday, we’d been talking briefly about tattoos, and I said how I’d been
delaying my next one, as it’d be a large commitment. That I carry a quote from
a Starbucks coffee cup in my wallet which says something like, To commit to
something, in work, or in play, is to remove our brain as a barrier to our
life.

To commit to this decision, to set down this whirling dervish of questioning … could be
a relief. I have never dated women – do I lament that I’ve “cut off” an entire
portion of the population? No. I’ve finally come to admit that dating someone
taller than me is actually really important to me. And that’s felt like a
sacrifice too. But, it’s funny, I’ve been noticing a lot more cute tall men
over the last two months…

Because what it all comes down to isn’t about religion or
self-will, it’s about abundance. Can I actually let myself believe that if I
really do, in my heart of hearts, want to spend a romantic life with someone
Jewish, can I believe that there is a tall, attractive, employed, happy, funny,
Jewish man out there? Seems like a tall order! (uh, no pun intended.) But, is
it? I mean, when I think about the kinds of miracles that I’ve witnessed in my
life and in the lives of others, am I still willing to debate the power of
what’s possible in this world? When I look at the majority of the community I
know as people who have been pulled back from the gates of insanity and death
to become working members of society with entirely incredible things to
contribute – am I still unwilling to
allow myself to believe?

The painful answer is no. I am not unwilling anymore. I have
been beaten into a state of reasonableness, I have suffered under the pain of
my manic debating society, and I have resigned from that committee. I am
willing to commit to the belief that my needs are important. Haven’t I been
saying that here for a while? Haven’t I run into places in my professional life
where I’ve agreed to things I don’t want, only to have to back out? Haven’t I
made a conscious and kind-to-myself decision to not do that anymore?

Isn’t this the same thing? Isn’t this the same cosmic
lesson? To listen to myself. To allow my needs to be heard. To be responsible
to myself with care, not dismissal. Yes. It is.

And so, here I sit, willing to allow the same consideration to my romantic life that I am newly showing myself in the areas of my professional and creative life, to
allow that faith, that sense of fun, and play, and direction, and the firm
belief that wherever these bits in the cement are coming from, I can trust that
I am being led to a life worth living.

It feels so uncomfortable. Which sort of points out to me
that it’s the “right” thing. I’ve resigned before to the “easy” route of accepting whatever’s in front of me, only to end up in pain. This is making a resolute decision to groove a new
path.

A good girl friend reminded me yesterday that crazy things happen when people are supposed to be
together, so if this particular gentleman or another non-Jew is actually
supposed to be it, he will be. “If it’s meant to be, you can’t fuck it up; if
it’s not meant to be, you can’t fix it.”

But ultimately, she also said that she sees this decision as me letting go of the rock in the middle of the river, and allowing myself to float.

So, here’s to learning the lessons this orbit around. Bring
on the miracles.